Silent Night: People Love Brooklyn's New 'Silent Dinners'

Some restaurants will do quite a lot for a little bit of attention. Eat, a locavore-friendly joint in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, is politely asking its customers to please shut up for once.

The Guardian's Hermione Hoby, for instance, approached the affair with skepticism—"I had thought that enforced silence would feel punitive, like a school assembly," she writes—but came away refreshed:

Instead, it feels like a reprieve. I calm down, slow down and take a long time over every mouthful.

As we wait for the main course, I hear five brisk grinds of a pepper mill from the open kitchen. Later, there is a meerkat Mexican wave of heads when attention turns to the noise of cream being whipped. This—hearing the small sounds that go into preparing a dish—somehow seems rather touching.

I was happy to eat quietly, silently observe the setting and think about the food I was putting in my body. I was calm. I felt more relaxed than I had the whole weekend. There was nothing to distract me at this dinner—the noises from the kitchen and the movements of other diners eventually became part of the background.

“The language of eating was gone and it was much more about the sensuality,” said Frank Lyon of Cobble Hill.

And then there was the mother of two 15-year-old boys who, despite not attending, told the New York Daily News that doing so was "kind of a fantasy" (though she speculated that it would be "incredibly difficult").

But, more simply, we suggest considering what silence represents: a brief respite from the daily stressors of modern life, particularly in the second most stressed out city in the country. No wonder Metro North's "silent cars" have been a relative success, and no wonder some have been surprised by the relaxation afforded by Eat's noiseless meals. Restaurants can be harbinger of anxiety as well—be it small talk with acquaintances or yelling over the din to get your waiter's attention—and this, perhaps, is a respite.

Thankfully, you don't have to shell out $40 to reap its benefits. Recent research shows that anyone can enjoy a silent dinner on the cheap at home.

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